Git Along, Little Dogies
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Transcription: by Darryl D. Bush
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Lyrics:
As I was a-walking one morning for pleasure
I spied a cowpuncher all riding along.
His hat was throwed back and his spurs was a-jinglin' and
As he approached me, he was singin' this song:
Chorus:
Whoopee ti yi yo, git along little dogies.
It's your misfortune and none of my own.
Whoopee ti yi yo, git along little dogies.
You know that Wyoming will be your new home.
Early in the springtime, we round up the dogies,
Mark 'em and brand 'em and bob off their tails.
Drive up our horses, load up the chuck-wagon,
Then throw the dogies out on the trail.
Chorus
It's a-whoopin' and yellin' and a-drivin' them dogies.
Oh, how I wish that you would go on.
It's a-whoopin' and punchin' and go on little dogies,
You know that Wyoming will be your new home.
Chorus
Some boys goes up on the trail just for pleasure
But that's where they get it most awfully wrong.
For you haven't an idea the trouble they give us
While we go driving them all along.
Chorus
When the night comes and we hold them on the bed-ground
These little dogies that roll on so slow.
Round up the herd and cut out the strays
And roll the little dogies that never rolled before.
Chorus
Your mother she was raised way down in Texas
Where the jimson weed and sand-burrs grow;
Now we'll fill you up on prickly-pear and cholla
Til you're ready for the trail to Idaho.
Chorus
"Git Along Little Dogies", also known as "Whoopie Ti Yi Yo" is a traditional cowboy<br> ballad It is believed to be a variation of a traditional Irish ballad about an old<br> man rocking a cradle. The cowboy adaptation is first mentioned in the 1893 journal<br> of Owen Wister, author of The Virginian. Through Wister's influence, the melody and<br> lyrics were first published in 1910 in John Lomax's Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier<br> Ballads. It is cataloged as Roud Folk Song Index #827. Members of the Western<br> Writers of America chose it as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time.<br> The "dogies" referred to in the song are runty or orphaned calves.<br> Ramon F. Adams, the author of numerous works on western Americana and a cowboy<br> himself, offered one possible etymology for dogie in his book Western Words. <br> During the 1880s, when a series of harsh winters left large numbers of orphaned<br> calves. The little calves, weaned too early, were unable to digest coarse range<br> grass and their swollen bellies "very much resembled a batch of sourdough carried in<br> a sack". Such a calf was referred to as dough-guts. The term, altered to dogie<br> according to Adams, “has been used ever since throughout cattleland to refer to a<br> pot-gutted orphan calf.” <br> The earliest commercial recording of the song was by Harry "Mac" McClintock in 1929<br> (released on Victor V-40016 as "Get Along, Little Doggies"). Other artists who have<br> recorded the song include Bing Crosby (for his 1960 album How the West Was Won),<br> Roy Rogers, Tex Ritter, the Sons of the Pioneers, Pete Seeger, The Bar G Wranglers,<br> The Kingston Trio, Charlie Daniels, David Bromberg, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Holly<br> Golightly, Suzy Bogguss and Nickel Creek. It was adapted in the cartoon Animaniacs<br> as "The Ballad of Magellan".<br> Historian Richard White borrowed a line from the song as the title of his 1991 book<br> It's Your Misfortune and None of My Own: A New History of the American West. <br>
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